Thursday, July 28, 2016

Scientists have found a bacterium in the human nose that produces an
antibiotic that can fight MRSA.

First, thank you for scientists. Thank you for the work they do to increase
our understanding and to assist humanity.

Second, thank you for the wonder of the human body. We are indeed
wonderfully made.

Third, help us pay attention to what’s right under our noses. Who knows
what else is readily available to us to help us deal with our problems? You
just might have given us plenty of grace, hope, and love to treat the spiritual
and social problems that threaten human health. Help us keep looking until we
find them. And having found them, help us make good use of them.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Too many people believe that the best way to make their point or to
express their feelings is to harm and kill other people. Too many people are
willing to use a gun, a bomb, a knife, a truck, or some other weapon to inflict
pain and grief on others.

Lead us to repent of violence. Lead us to repent of our attitudes and
motives that accept and even fuel violence. Help us not to nurture thoughts of
anger and desires for vengeance.

Help us as a community, be it local, national, or universal, address
the societal problems that prompt people to believe that killing will help them
or their cause. Help us address mental illness, prejudice, oppression,
inequality, ignorance, and other situations that lie behind the violence and
killing that are far too commonplace.

Help us as followers of the Prince of Peace to do all we can to
promote, advocate for, and live in peace.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Forgive those who think that’s a good thing. Forgive us if we think it’s a good thing.

The discourse during this campaign has often spread darkness more than light and obscured truth more than revealed it.

We pray that the candidates and their campaigns will be motivated by a desire to do what’s best for the nation and for the world. We pray that they will speak the truth and act with integrity so we can evaluate them on the basis of what they say and do.

We recognize that they are likely to fall short of such ideals.

So we pray that you will give us wisdom and discernment. Give us the ability to know the truth and to act on it. Help us to interpret political discourse well so we can make the best decision possible when we vote this fall. Let our hearing, understanding, and responding be guided by grace, love, empathy, and compassion.

Monday, July 18, 2016

The recent shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge have made us more aware than usual of the dangers law enforcement officials face.

Bless the families, friends, and fellow officers of the officers who were killed or injured in those incidents. Give them the grace, faith, and courage they need for these days. Help the communities where the shootings occurred to deal with their trauma in hopeful, positive, and healing ways.

Protect all of the officers who dedicate their lives to serving and protecting their communities.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

On the one hand, it’s hard to love everybody.
It’s overwhelming, since we can’t get to them all.

On the other hand, it’s easy to love everybody.
As long as we keep it general, we can’t do anything about it.

So help us to love people one person at a time.

Help us love people by loving the person who is front of us at the moment.

Help us love the person in front of us

by listening to them closely,
by taking their experiences seriously,
by thinking about their perspectives deeply,
by conversing with them honestly,
by sharing our lives with them vulnerably, and
by giving ourselves to them generously.

Monday, July 11, 2016

It is indeed a gift—we were born with it, we didn’t ask for it, and we didn’t’ earn it.

It just is.

And it is a fact of our lives.

Thank you that we are black and white and brown, in any number of variations and combinations.

Forgive us when we assume, consciously or unconsciously, that our race is better than or superior to someone else’s. Forgive us when we believe, consciously or unconsciously, that our race is worse than or inferior to someone else’s.

Make us glad to be what we are. Make us glad that others are what they are.

Help us be appropriately aware of our heritage. Help us be appropriately grateful for what is positive in it and appropriately remorseful for what is negative in it.

Help us be appreciative and respectful of each other’s heritage.

Make us as aware as we can be of each other’s experience. Help us get to know each other. Help us treat each other as companions on the human journey. Help us understand that we are all in this together, so we will either rise up or collapse together.

Help us grow in unity even as we respect and embrace our diversity.

Thank you for how far we’ve come. Forgive us for having come no farther than we have. Help us use our current problems as an opportunity to move toward a healthier human community.

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Still, we praise you for all your blessings even as we ask for your grace, peace, love, and guidance.

If and as we have been involved in or complicit in ways of thinking, talking, and acting that have made life hard for others, forgive us. Give us grace to repent. Give us grace to make things right, insofar as we can.

Help us to come together.

Let your great love that we see in Jesus Christ—love that gives itself up for others’ sake—fill and inspire us, so that we become your ambassadors for peace.

Friday, July 8, 2016

Why are people so afraid? Why do they assume the worst of others and see them as threats?

Why are people so angry? Why do they seek vengeance for real or perceived wrongs?

Why do people think violence helps anything? Why do they inflict pain and death on others?

Help us not to think and speak in clichés. Help us instead to seek and face real explanations, complicated and troublesome though they may be. Help us instead to seek and work for real solutions, challenging and difficult though they may be.

Help us not to think in terms of them and us. Help us rather to accept our mutual responsibility so that we can together seek ways to make things better.

Friday, July 1, 2016

when to wait and when to act,
when to remain silent and when to speak,
when to disagree and when to agree,
when to withdraw and when to remain,
when to deny and when to affirm, and
when to protest and when to cooperate.

Let us pray ...

About Prayer 365

The prayers that appear at Prayer 365 are written and published by Michael L. Ruffin. Permission is granted to use or adapt these prayers in public worship with the condition that if a prayer is reproduced in a printed order of worship attribution is given. Permission is also granted to link to a prayer at this site provided that a link back to this blog is provided. All other rights are reserved. All Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version unless otherwise indicated.